


The Moments in Between

by StopTalkingAtMe



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Age Difference, Bittersweet, F/M, Mild Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29863614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopTalkingAtMe/pseuds/StopTalkingAtMe
Summary: Age is an illusion, or so Jo tells herself at least.
Relationships: Third Doctor/Jo Grant
Kudos: 2





	The Moments in Between

**Author's Note:**

> Because I can't see the Doctor's speech in the first episode of The Green Death as anything but a love confession. :D
> 
> All comments are appreciated, and as always I welcome constructive criticism.

He touches her, Jo thinks, in the same reverent way he touches the TARDIS, as though it were a living thing, the love of his life. He laughs when she tells him, but in a way that suggests she’s not far off the mark, and Jo feels a stab of jealousy, which at first surprises her and then makes her laugh, because it's ludicrous to be jealous of a battered old blue box, even one that strikes her as nothing short of a miracle.

He’s the same with Bessie too, never happier than when he's tinkering, sometimes with an aim in mind and sometimes just fiddling about under the bonnet, wiping his oil-stained hands with a grimy rag, his sleeves rolled up and his velvet jacket hung safely out of the way. She likes the routine they’ve settled into in the quiet lulls when no alien invasions seem imminent, sharing breakfast together, with Jo content simply to watch him work, the dextrous motions of his fingers moving over the disassembled component parts as he names them for her, describing their functions in terms that might as well be in Greek for all the sense she can make of them.

She worried, when they first cautiously agreed to give it a go, that it wouldn't be like other relationships. Well, that went without saying, clearly. It's not every day a girl gets herself a boyfriend who not only promises to give her the universe, but means it, _and_ is fully capable of actually following through on his promise. They’re both wary of taking it too seriously, too early. He has family of some kind somewhere, or he did have once, but he doesn't volunteer the information, and she doesn't feel able to ask, not yet, although she's sure he'd tell her if she did. That blackest day he never quite got around to telling her about, perhaps.

If she’s honest with herself, she’s not sure she wants to know.

* * *

Keeping it a secret proves easier than she expected. It helps that they've always been tactile with each other. At first they’re careful, avoiding all the little displays of affection that have become second nature. At least until Mike asks her if something’s up between her and the Doctor, whether they’ve had an argument. After that, they stop bothering to hide it and no matter how physical they get with each other – Jo picking imaginary fluff off his lapel; the Doctor slipping his arm around her and all but kissing her hair – no one seems to notice.

No one, that is, except for Liz Shaw, who’s down in London for the weekend. Jo’s never quite sure of Liz, aware of the gulf of experience between them and, as much as she tries not to be, envious of the Doctor’s respect for her as a scientist. They all have dinner together, swapping tales of their adventures in the private room of a restaurant near UNIT HQ, and while the Doctor and Jo, both a little drunk and in high spirits, describe their latest adventures in the TARDIS in heavily veiled terms, Jo forgets herself and places her hand on the Doctor’s arm as she laughs up at him. Then she sees Liz watching them, her brow slightly arched. When she gives Jo a questioning look, Jo flushes, and in her haste to cover up her embarrassment, she reaches for her wine too quickly and knocks over her water glass. In the resulting kerfuffle, the moment is forgotten, and when Jo risks glancing back at Liz, she finds her engrossed in conversation with the Brigadier.

She hasn’t quite got away with it though. Liz invites her for coffee the following day. No surprise that the subject of the Doctor comes up.

"He's changed since I knew him," Liz says, sipping her coffee.

"In what way?"

"I'm not sure, really. He seems less serious. Happier. You’re a good influence on him."

 _Happier._ A smile spreads across Jo’s face, the sort of smile she couldn't have suppressed even to save her life. She looks down, her cheeks warm. Liz watches her carefully.

"So I was right," she says. "I thought so."

The wonders of the scientific method, Jo thinks with a stab of bitterness. Develop a hypothesis, then test it: isn’t that what the Doctor’s always been trying to teach her?

"You are..." Liz hesitates. "I mean it isn't just that you're sweet on him?"

"We are," Jo admits. "For quite a while now. You're the first person to notice."

Liz murmurs something unflattering about the Brigadier's observational skills and Jo laughs. "You can't really blame the Brigadier," she says. "I’m not sure I believe it, myself. Anyway, it might not just be me. The TARDIS is working again. If anything's cheered him up, it's probably that."

Liz frowns, a strange expression on her face. She never had the chance to travel in the TARDIS, Jo remembers, although she’s seen the files and she knows what they encountered on Earth was often strange enough.

"I'm sure he'd take you with him," Jo says. "If you asked."

"Travel in the TARDIS, you mean?"

"It doesn't appeal?"

Liz considers this for a long few moments, her eyes distant. "I'd be lying if I said the idea didn't fascinate me," she says after a long while, "but at the same time..." She draws a breath and shivers, shaking her head. "It's not for me. I have my own work to be getting on with and that takes up more than enough of my time." She hesitates, then adds gently, "I just hope you know what you're doing."

"It's not my first time around the block you know. I have had boyfriends before."

"Boyfriend," Liz repeats, with a disbelieving shake of her head. "Of all the things I thought I'd ever hear the Doctor called, that would have been the last thing on the list."

"We're not doing anything wrong," Jo says, although the note of protest in her own voice makes her wonder if she really believes it. At the very least, it’s hardly professional. "I know what I'm doing."

"I'm not entirely sure that anyone involved with the Doctor ever really knows what they're doing," Liz says, but she reaches across the table to squeeze Jo's arm to tell her she's not completely serious. "I know I never did."

* * *

Age is meaningless, or so she tells herself.

To a man like the Doctor, who is centuries old, what difference does it make whether she’s twenty-one or a hundred-and-one? It’s an illusion, anyway: he might look older – and he indisputably _is_ – but his body, this specific body, is less than five years old. It makes her dizzy when she thinks about it too much.

It bothers him too, she can tell, even though it’s yet another of the many things he doesn’t talk about. His resentment at the enforced regeneration lingers, the indignity of having a body forced on him without his even having the chance to age with it. His stolen youth. As punishments go, it’s breathtaking in its cruelty, and she wonders at the world he came from, how a people so cold-hearted and self-satisfied could have come to produce a man like him. Then she remembers his planet also produced the Master, and things become a little clearer.

They’re in his room in the TARDIS, in his bed. The sheets are crisp and snowy-white; in this, as in everything else, he doesn't stint on luxury, but there are traces of the other men he’s been, left behind like ghosts. The walls are covered with the same roundels common to the rest of the TARDIS, but the light here is different, coloured by a soft rosy tint. The walls hum: if she listens, she can almost hear them singing.

"It's not so bad, this body," she tells him, running her finger down his nose. "I'm rather fond of it. It's got character."

"Character? Of all the cheek."

She laughs, kisses the tip of his nose.

Everywhere there are books, in every language she recognises, and many that she doesn’t. Not all are in a form she would recognise as a book, were it not for the sensation she's only gradually becoming aware of, the gentle push as the TARDIS inserts knowledge into her head. One she cradles in her hands, a three-dimensional cuboid which resembles nothing so much as a fancy alien Rubik’s cube, its surface intricately chased and gilded with silver and shining enamel. It’s a romance, the Doctor tells her, which shifts form depending on the way the cube is manipulated.

"So it's like a futuristic Choose Your Own Adventure?" she says, deciding it’s probably better not to mention Rubik’s cubes.

"It's a masterpiece, Jo," he says, slightly disapproving.

"Well, I can't get it to work at all."

"You do it like this." And he reaches around her to place his hands over hers, working it hand over hand. His chin rests on her shoulder, his breath on her skin a little distracting. "There, you see?"

"I don't get it. There's nothing to read–" And then the words seem to shiver into her mind, the images mingled with words that she hears as English but with the edge that she’s beginning to recognise as a translation. She has a sense of stunning prose, but she barely notices, distracted as she is by the image that has blossomed into existence in her mind's eye, so richly vivid with detail and eroticism that she draws a breath and almost fumbles the cube. But she's got the hang of it now, and with a swipe of her thumb, she flicks away from that point in the story: from the shared sensations of ragged breath; candlelight; sweat gleaming on skin. "You did that on purpose."

"Certainly not," he says, in a voice that does absolutely nothing to dispel her suspicions.

For all the illusion of age, he’s stronger than he looks, his arm tightening around the small of her back as they settle into a rhythm. It always surprises her a little, how well they seem to fit together and how _good_ he is at this. She wasn’t expecting him to out to be the best lover she's had in her life (or probably ever will have), but he is and by quite some margin. Not that she’s planning on telling him that: he's already far too big-headed. Besides, she suspects he already knows.

Afterwards, she lies with her head on his chest, listening to the double-thrum of his twin hearts beating in rhythm with the pulse of the TARDIS’s walls. He traces his fingers up and down her spine, as she wonders what she is to him and how long this can really go on. What is it that keeps bringing him back here, and how long he’ll consent to be shackled to this insignificant little planet and to this time period now that the TARDIS is working.

She can’t quite bring herself to voice her fears, or how to make him understand that while it's been amazing travelling with him, seeing the wonders of the universe and life in all its forms (even if much of it does often try to kill her), she just can’t see herself doing it long-term, any more than she can see the Doctor settling down. Perhaps she’s not so very different from Liz, after all.

It can’t last forever. She knows that. She always did. But if he’s taught her one thing, it’s that the only moment that really matters is the one you’re in.


End file.
